Both are ferocious linebackers. Both received dozens of scholarship
offers. Both, if coached properly on the next level, have NFL
potential.

The pair come from opposite parts of town. Ngakoue attends Friendship
Collegiate, a charter school in NE D.C. with an enrollment hovering
right above 1,000 students. Levenberry calls Hylton High School -- a bustling
campus 30 miles south of D.C. in Woodbridge, Va. -- his home.

But their most notable connection has to do with a growing trend in
the college football recruiting landscape. Ngakoue and Levenberry
verbally committed to their respective schools months ago, yet still
took official visits from other flirtatious universities, before
ultimately making their college decision at the very last moment.

Why has prolonging the recruiting process become a growing trend in
recent years? Because you and I give 17-year-old kids the platform on
the Internet, making them feel like stars.

Ngakoue, who was one of 20 Friendship players to receive a football scholarship, said he knew months ago he was going to be a Terp on his unofficial visit. If he revealed his choice earlier, it would have significantly lessened the hype he received today all over Twitter and the blogosphere. It was an effective marketing strategy.

"I kept everyone's heart racing to see where I was going to go,"
explained Ngakoue, who added South Carolina and Florida State to his
list after verbally committing to Maryland in June. "I got a lot of
mentions on Twitter, saying please come to Gamecock Nation, or Nole
Nation. They were showing me a lot of love."

"I just love the attention. I like all eyes on me and stuff like
that," continued a smiling Ngakoue minutes after he made his
announcement in the Friendship gymnasium.

The more modest Levenberry admits to getting 50-60 messages on
Facebook from Tennessee fans, begging the burly linebacker to reconsider
their school. The online stalking from the fans didn't ultimately sway his
decision. Neither did the text messages, emails and visits from a healthy portion of the Tennessee coaching staff.

"My heart was always at Florida State. I found out it's a war, recruiting. Schools won't stop until you sign that dotted line."

Let me be clear: neither Yannick nor E.J. are at fault for wanting to
unnecessarily drag out their recruiting process, weighing scholarship
offers they were never really going to accept. Both seem like fine young
gentlemen, with vast potential. But five-ten years ago, this charade of
wasting resources, time and money, all at the expense of creating more
hype for the recruit and school, barely existed. Now, it's become
mainstream. And it all seems like an act.

Though recruiting has always been cutthroat, Levenberry's head coach
Tony Lilly concurred that the Internet has been a strategic tool for
universities trying to swoop in and steal recruits and for players to build their profile.

"The process has changed quite a bit," recalled Lilly, who played
defensive back at the University of Florida and for the Denver Broncos
in the mid-1980s. "The technology and communication has opened up a
whole new realm of possibilities, for players and the schools. Everybody
can talk to everybody now. The kids have so much exposure now."

Media
platforms like Rivals.com, Scout.com, MaxPreps.com, ESPNU etc. are just
as much to blame for this snafu in the recruiting process as coaching staffs are. Signing Day has become the spectacle it is today largely
due to these "last minute decisions" from teenagers. Hundreds of
thousands of college football fans can't get enough of the gossipy
information.

College football programs want to be listed as high as possible on all
of those media recruiting rankings. So they willingly go after
players that are already committed just to gain buzz around their
school.

Someone has to try and stop the charade, right? Well,
it's far too late for that. If the NCAA has stuck with the flawed BCS
system for this long, there's zero chance they are going to alter the
way schools are allowed to pitch verbal commits. In fact, the needless
back and forth relationships between schools and recruits are only going
to get worse with the continued expansion of social media.

Obviously, most of all, the kids are the ones being hurt.
Because they've decided to remain a soft verbal commit, coaching staffs
guarantee promises they can't keep, just so the recruit will stay on board.

I
wish I could tell you the less attention we pay to Signing Day, the
cleaner the process will be. To me, the system is forever broken and lying to recruits is only going to spread.

As exciting as college football is on Saturday's in the fall, it can unnoticeably be a cruel, cruel world.